Lithuania, 2005

Lithuania welcomes this

effort — the most extensive and ambitious ever made —

to renew the United Nations. We must ensure that the

summit commitments we all have undertaken are

implemented and that they produce real and tangible

results, in order to improve the Organization’s capacity

to act adequately, effectively, expeditiously and in the

best interests of us all. Their implementation should

also enable us to give hope to the vulnerable and the

destitute and to make the world a better place for all.

We welcome the affirmation by the outcome

document of the inextricable link between

development, security and human rights. That, in our

view, is a sine qua non for all our future actions. We

welcome the reaffirmation of the commitments regarding

the implementation of the Millennium Development

Goals. As a member State of the European Union, we

are proud of the Union’s commitment to double its

overall aid level by the year 2010, including a

considerable increase in aid to Africa.

We support the establishment of a Democracy

Fund for countries seeking to establish or strengthen

their democratic practices. In our view, that Fund will

contribute to maximizing the impact of development

assistance by focusing on the improvement of

governance standards. Transparent and democratic

governance practices can make quite a difference in the

performance of countries that are otherwise quite

similar in terms of their natural resources and social

structure.

We emphasize the role of international trade in

promoting economic growth and development and thus

in fighting poverty. We therefore add our voice to calls

for a rapid, ambitious and development-oriented

completion of the Doha trade round.

Furthermore, Lithuania is convinced that all

development and all relevant related strategies should

have a built-in element of environmental sustainability.

We welcome the language of the outcome document to

that effect but believe that we should go further.

In particular, we underline the importance of

going beyond Kyoto by initiating negotiations on the

development of a more inclusive and equitable

international framework for climate change beyond the

year 2012.

Lithuania welcomes the strong and unconditional

condemnation of terrorism in the outcome document.

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We call on the General Assembly to complete, at its

sixtieth session, work on a comprehensive convention

on terrorism and on a global counter-terrorism strategy,

as proposed by the Secretary-General earlier this year.

We strongly welcome the endorsement of

“responsibility to protect” populations from genocide,

war crimes and ethnic cleansing. This is of

fundamental importance; it is an important step that

gives us hope that we shall no longer look away nor

stand idly by as entire populations are being killed.

Lithuania fully supports the proposals regarding

United Nations management reform. We hope the

blueprint to be submitted by the Secretary-General will

not fall victim to endless debates by Member States

but, rather, lead to tangible changes, improving the

Organization’s accountability, transparency, efficiency

and professionalism, while assuring the highest ethical

standards.

Too often in the past, we have seen nations

emerging from conflict lapse into disruption and chaos,

thus destabilizing entire regions. We therefore call for

rapid progress in making the Peacebuilding

Commission fully operational before the end of this

year.

While expressing our satisfaction with the

agreement to double resources for the Office of the

High Commissioner for Human Rights, we urge all

nations to take conclusive decisions in the coming

months on the basis of the wording agreed to by the

vast majority of countries in establishing a robust and

effective Human Rights Council.

At the same time, we have to admit that the

outcome document is lacking considerably in some

areas. We are well aware that the reform process is not

a one-time event. As we proceed along the path of

United Nations reform, we must make sure these areas

are not left out.

First, there is the issue of impunity. The fight

against impunity and the rendering of justice must be

part and parcel of our common efforts to improve the

human rights situation worldwide. We stress our

support for the International Criminal Court, as well as

the existing ad hoc and mixed criminal tribunals and

other mechanisms for international justice.

Secondly, there is the question of Security

Council reform which cannot be delayed further,

especially if we really care about restoring the

authority and credibility of the United Nations. The

Council’s working methods must be improved to

provide greater input from non-member States. Its

membership must be expanded in both the permanent

and non-permanent categories, with due consideration

being paid to equitable geographical representation and

the recent emergence of new international actors and

contributors. Lithuania has long supported the

candidacies of Germany and Japan as permanent

members of the Security Council. We appreciate the

aspirations of India and Brazil to undertake the

honourable responsibility of permanent membership,

and we agree that Africa’s representation in both

categories of membership is long overdue.

After 11 years of debate on the issue of Security

Council reform, it is time to admit that we are unlikely

to produce new arguments without repeating ourselves

indefinitely. Lithuania, therefore, calls on all Member

States to assume their responsibilities and to take

action.

Finally, let me touch upon the failure to agree, in

the outcome document, on the issues of non-

proliferation and disarmament. This is the major failure

of our summit, especially in the light of the unfortunate

conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Review Conference earlier this year. We must honour

our earlier agreements and obligations, restore

consensus and invest all our efforts in search of

agreement on this crucial issue. We therefore call on all

nations to rally around the initiative put forward by

Norway and a group of like-minded countries; we

believe this initiative could become a basis of viable

consensus and future cooperative action.

Last December, we witnessed an unprecedented

outburst of solidarity with the Asian tsunami victims.

These past few weeks, our hearts were with the people

of the United States, whose citizens saw their lives

shattered and whole communities destroyed by

Hurricane Katrina. We offered whatever assistance we

could to those affected and we extend our condolences

to all those who have suffered from this enormous

devastation.

In moments of grief and sorrow, we are one. Pain

has no nationality, no religion, no race. Similarly, we

should all be one in our solidarity. We should not have

to wait for new cataclysms and large-scale tragedies in

order to agree on the need to build a renewed United

Nations for the new century. As Secretary-General

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Kofi Annan has repeatedly noted, in this globalized,

interrelated world, it is the collective interest that is

often in our best national interest.